The showmanship aspect of drag racing can never be denied, and in 1965, this special Dodge Coronet made its owner, Dick Landy, into a nationally known star. Moreover, this factory-designed race car is one of the most original cars remaining from the infamous altered-wheelbase program that placed the term “funny car” into drag racing’s lexicon that year. Eventually, a total of 12 cars were built for the factory racing program, in a season which saw nitromethane used as a fuel and elapsed times tumble. For Dandy Dick and his trademark unlit cigar, this was the year he moved into the highest echelon of door-slammer racers.

These “outlaw” 426 Hemi race cars became legendary almost immediately. Constructed with fiberglass parts on a lightened body structure, Chrysler’s engineers chose to throw away the rule book and build something solely for function. Internal paperwork called it an “AFX Dragster,” though they were never A/FX legal after the wheels were moved up 10 inches in front and 15 inches in the rear. This may have looked funny, but their epic performances were very serious, with Landy and his compatriots playing to huge crowds at drag strips across America. Few survived the ravages of time, with Landy’s Dodge now considered to be the most important of the cars that still exist.

It might have been Landy’s huge wheelstands showing the front end reaching up toward the sky being prominently published that helped set him apart. However, he also won Bakerfield’s March Meet, went to the Unlimited Fuel final at the notorious first Super Stock Nationals at York US 30 Dragway and took home the overall multi-event championship in the late-season West Coast Super Stock series. When this car came to Factory Lightweights, owner Nick Smith chose a specific moment in time to have it refreshed to by expert “Hemi Eddie” Strzelecki. The era was in May 1965, just after the fuel injection was installed and right before Landy embarked on the national tour that would help establish his career. In this time window, the car still had the single A990-style headlamps, clear windows and tan interior, most still original to this car.

Landy was more involved in these cars from the start then some people realize, and it was special modifications he did to this particular vehicle that helped it survive to the present. Landy was the man responsible to Chrysler for finding an aerospace firm capable of acid-dipping entire bare shells. After the bodies were returned to subcontractor Amblewagon for wheelbase adjustments, Landy then constructed a suspension-bracing design similar to one he had developed in 1964 to strengthen the overall vehicle, an unmistakable part of its verification. Indeed, this car’s heritage has been unquestioned since Landy verified it in the early 1990s, when then-owner Mike Guffey asked him to examine it. One quickly visual aspect was a cracked driver-side tail-lamp lens, which Landy recalled damaging and that remains on the car to this day. Another verification, albeit a humorous one, is the wording “This Side Up” that Landy himself etched into the underside of the chassis.

This car’s other owners include Jim Wetton of Studio Dodge the following 1966 season, pioneer racing collector Toli Polewik during most of the 1970s until Guffey purchased it, and a West Coast collection. It has never been offered publicly in the collector era. It should be noted that Polewik and Guffey deserve much credit for their dedication and efforts to preserve the originality and authenticity of this legendary car.

Having earned a Meadow Brook Concours Blue Ribbon in the midst of its peers, thanks to its undeniable originality and exquisite detailing, this icon even comes with a copy of the original Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin signed by Dick Landy. This winning drag racer has been featured in the books “Extreme Muscle Cars” by Bill Holder & Phil Kunz, “Super Stock, Drag Racing the Family Sedan" by Larry Davis, “Maximum Performance” by Jim Schild, “Drag Racing's Quarter-Mile Warriors” and “Match Race Mayhem” both by Doug Boyce as well as “Landy’s Dodges” and “Hemi: A Competition History” both by Geoff Stunkard. Additional supporting documentation includes voluminous Chrysler internal paperwork and a Chrysler Registry Report stating "no doubt this is the best Altered-AFX example of its kind.”

"Landy’s Dodge" speaks for itself. It is arguably the most famous and most photographed full-bodied drag car of that time, and it is an unequalled opportunity to own what indeed may be the ultimate surviving drag car from the Golden Age of Super Stock & A/FX drag racing.

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